Every UK #1 Single Of 1973 Discussion Thread

Cum On Feel The Noize
Barnstorming single of a band at their absolute peak.
Commercial Rock...for all the ages.
5/5

 

That'll keep you busy.

 

Two great singles.
Also Blockbuster is a better track than Jean Genie. Fight me.

 

Green with envy. I was 10-11 years in 1973, wáááy too young for going to gigs (but I did make up for that later, from '77 onwards).

On a different note, correct me if I'm wrong, but I noticed when reading those Record Mirror charts, nobody called artists like Sweet and T. Rex yet "glam", they were labelled glitter rock, and that's actually how I remember it as well.

 

Rolls up my sleeves......

 

Bowie's Jean Genie also shares more than a few bars with Oh Yeah by The Shadows Of Knight (although they all are basically playing a standard blues riff).

 

By a country mile!

 

Another winner from Slade which back then found its way into our household (including the sleeve pictured above). Noddy Holder's vocals on Cum On Feel The Noize might be the best he ever delivered. From the counting off his voice is literally burstin' out of the grooves.

 

It maybe, but neither comes within a country mile of Drive In Saturday.

 

Both Jean Genie and Blockbuster are the children of Jacques Dutronc

 

Only in the mid-'60s

 

Drive-In Saturday was a big hit, but seems to be a forgotten Bowie single for many. The Jean Genie and Life On Mars? from the same year seem to have stuck in people’s minds more..

 

Yes, very much so.

My, pre plastic soul, Bowie favourites are:

1. Drive In Saturday
2. Rebel Rebel
3. John, I'm Only Dancing
4. Life On Mars
5. Aladdin Sane (Ok it wasn't a single)

 

I was reading a LOT of Robert A Heinlein in that '71 to '74 period. 'Drive-In Saturday' was one of those songs that fit in perfectly with my mind-set at the time.
We know Bowie had loads of reflections. There are people on this forum who will engage in heated exchanges as to Bowie's 'best' period. I just smile. Whatever they offer, I lived as a teen through his meteoric rise. Nothing is going to beat the 'Man Who Sold the World' to 'David Live' run. 'Drive-In Saturday' was another jewel in that very fine time.

 

I lived through this period, but was too young to appreciate it properly. Indeed, the first Bowie single I’d buy would be Life On Mars?, but it’d be 10 years later. One of those ‘Old Gold’ singles. It had The Man Who Sold The World on the B-side.

 

Singles reviews page from NME. Our next #1 doesn’t fare too well.

 

At least he fares better than James Taylor. One Man Drivel? Oh snap!

 

Heard Smokie’s “Lay back in the arms of someone” just a few hours ago on the car radio. The really were “The Faces pt. II”, weren’t they? That Stewartesque vocal, that lively bass, these acoustic guitars with strummed chords, a bit of lead guitar on top....

 

A bit more subdued than the Faces.


I’d put them somewhere between the Eagles and Dr Hook.

 

OMG don't let The Faces fans on here hear you say that

 

Actually I really liked Smokie...

 

You’d assume I’d have liked them, but I don’t think they had one single I ever considered buying..

 

I never bought a record at the time but I have a greatest hits cd and there are a few songs that I really love.
But yes, I am suprised that you don't like them....

 

Faces without Ronnie or Mac and with Rod half asleep.

 

So did I, but Faces 2 they are not.